Young children and retarded persons often find great difficulty in tying their shoelaces into bows. The tying of a bow involves several steps in which the person's hands must grasp the laces, with the configuration of the laces being partially obscured and in a complex relationship. Markings can be placed on the free end portions of the laces to indicate how the laces are to be folded, with U.S. Pat. No. 2,646,630 by Miller showing one series of markings to aid in tying shoelaces. However, such techniques still require a person to grasp the laces throughout the tying sequence. A shoelace which facilitated the understanding of each of the steps by a person so that he could tie the lace slower and with less possibility of failure, would aid in teaching young children and the retarded to tie their shoelaces.